The Romney campaign is now putting Paul Ryan out on the trail to embrace Romney's worst ideas. Yesterday, Ryan stumped in North Canton, Ohio, bashing China. He said the following: "Free trade is a powerful tool for peace and prosperity, but our trading partners need to play by the rules. This challenge focuses on China. They steal our intellectual property rights, they block access to their markets, they manipulate their currency."

In an effort to win the critical swing states with large manufacturing bases -- Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan -- Mitt Romney has been promising to label China a currency manipulator on day one as President. The GOP nominee for President is falling for one of the biggest economic superstitions today: that a weak dollar will shift seeming trade imbalances (as if trade deficits were negative in and of themselves).

Shame on Ryan for compromising his classical economic principles by threatening a trade war with China and endorsing a devaluationist currency policy. Ryan has changed in one short week. When the House voted on the Currency Reform Fair Trade Act in 2010, Ryan was among 79 members who voted against the measure. If Ryan is changing his position now this much, then it is clear that he agreed to climb on board with a Romney campaign strategy based on Establishment Republicanism. Ryan should have, instead, won 'concessions' from the Romney camp to shift the course of the campaign in a pro-growth direction.

China demagoguery is rampant among both parties, and therefore the possibility of dangerous, unintended economic consequences are high. John Boehner has been a vocal opponent of this mercantilist ideology in the House. If Romney-Ryan win in November, his defense against protectionism and devaluationism will be breached.

Underscoring how misguided the China-bashing politics are these days, a recent study by the US-China Business Council, cited in this morning's Wall Street Journal editorial, shows that the export growth to China in the critical swing manufacturing states -- PA, OH and MI -- has increased 1177%, 838% and 1169% respectively during the last decade. Even more, each of these states is one of the top 15 state exporters.

If Ryan can't shift the Romney camp on an easy economic issue like China, then there is little hope that he'll ultimately compel the Romney White House to favor the most important supply-side issues today: eliminating capital taxation completely and reforming monetary policy toward a commodity-based price rule.